Building the Arab region’s biggest B2B market place is not without its challenges

Read In

Two
years agoSyrian entrepreneur Salim
Akil was poised to make his SearchinMena.com, a Yellow Pageseque search engine,
the region’s largest B2B marketplace for small
businesses.

Since then their giant database of local and regional suppliers and
service providers has grown exponentially to 25,000 (they had
14,000 registered businesses back in 2013), and they now have more
than 1,500 visits per day.

This success, which is still in its
early stages, wasn’t easy, especially with Akil’s big ambitions.
“The idea was born in 2007 when I was looking online for
competitors of my father’s company in Syria, but in vain. And
that’s when I had the idea for SearchinSyria.com which later turned
into a ‘Yellow Pages’ directory for businesses in Syria,” the
founder told Wamda. “By 2010, I had two offices in two different
cities in Syria, and the French company, Compass, wanted to acquire
the website. However, the deteriorating situation in the country
prevented that.”

Akil said though that this helped
him gain experience and set a vision for his company, which was to
expand his idea to include the whole MENA region. Later, he moved
to Lebanon, and then to Dubai in 2011,
where he launched SearchinMena.com. A move with its own set of
challenges, one of which was a year spent looking for clients and
investors in vain. “I met 15 serious investors, until I eventually
received an investment offer from the Silicon
Oasis Founders incubator.”

SearchinMena.com currently offers
its customers around 1,000 categories of products. Two registering
options for companies are: for free, or for a yearly $1,000
subscription. “When companies decide to register for free, they
receive low traffic because they can only post limited information
and one product model” explains Akil. “The paid option, on the
other hand, allows them to post about a large number of products
and a comprehensive description of their
business.”

Akil also adds that when companies
register for free they conduct a simple verification process to
make sure the company is real, has a physical address, and is
posting correct information.

As for visitors (or customers), the
website allows them to search through a list of companies that they
might not find on Google, as well as finding accurate information
about them. Time that might be spent travelling to said businesses
is immediately cut out of the equation as customers are able to
connect with the sellers through the site, as well as ordering
samples of the products they’re after.

When it comes to the companies, most
of which come from KSA, UAE, and Egypt, as for customers come from
the US, France, Turkey, KSA, and UAE. However, despite these big
numbers, SearchinMena.com aspires to reach 150,000 registered
companies this year, as well as a further expansion of their
network to include Turkey and Morocco. Furthermore, Akil aims at
raising the number of customers to 5,000 per day by the end of this
year.

Challenges

For Akil it is the database that
constitutes as his biggest challenge, especially when only 15% of
the companies have a website of their own, and 85% don’t even have
online presence. A solution that Akil is working on is the
acquisition of existing websites that have large databases but low
income, and launching a wide marketing and advertising campaign
through direct sales, especially telephone sales.

SEO and Google Adwords, which is an
effective and low-cost solution, are also part of his plan, as well
as convincing companies to opt for paid
registration.

Lack of trust is also another
challenge. According to Akil “customers from outside the region
don’t trust companies here and don’t have the necessary tools to
check their credibility. We want to be the platform that offers
them the opportunity of working in our region.”

Finding the
funding

In turn, the funds that have been
injected into the company have contributed to the continuing
development of the website and the services it provides. In this
context, Akil tells Wamda that at first he was self-funding the
business (it took him $30,000 - $10,000 of his personal
savings and $20,000 from his cousin), and then he obtained
mentoring and funding from Silicon Oasis Founders that reached a
total of $140,000. However, the amount wasn’t sufficient for Akil,
and so he turned to crowdfunding, initially on Eureeca where he
raised $140,000, and then through direct funding, eventually
raising $450,000.

“Raising money, especially from seed
investors, is very difficult,” says Akil. “Eureeca was the best
option because it served as a tool to connect with friends and
acquaintances and to convince them to invest in my company. It was
much like a safe investment marketplace.” Over the next six months
they are looking to raise $3 million.

Some good news, but a problem at the
same time, is the rise in the value of the company’s shares. This
has led to most of the 40 shareholders not wanting to sell their
shares (and there is increasing interest from others who want to
buy in). “We turned to a financial firm to assess our shares,
compared to the global startups marketplace, without taking
revenues into consideration.” Akil says that theresult was that a $10,000 investment in 2014 (the
minimum of which gave 0.5% of the company shares) is today worth
$25,000.However, SearchinMena.com, which
still largely depends on investment, and is not generating profits,
has managed so far to pay the salaries of seven full-time
employees.

Expansion?

Akil also told Wamda about his
decision to expand to the US, and to open an office for the company
in Silicon Valley, would be a strategic movement in the long run -
all part of Akil’s plans to launch a mobile version of the site
from there, in turn attracting US companies looking to purchase
from companies in the MENA region. “In three years, we will need
$30 to $50 million from venture capitals, and being in the US is
the only way to attract these sums.”

Two years ago Akil said he wanted to
build the Alibaba of the Arab world - well, if he can raise
his 25,000 registered companies to 400,000, then maybe he can get a
place at the negotiating table with the Chinese
giant.